Metronomes have been commonly used to assist musicians in developing skills with respect to timing and rhythm and are used to assist in coordinating a group of musicians to stay in time. In many musical groups it is the drummer who sets the beat and the remaining members of the group merely follow the set beat.
Metronomes can be generally divided into visual and audible metronomes and in most cases the metronome is capable of operating in either or both of these modes. The most common metronome for a drummer to use includes a loud “click tone” (also called a “click track”) such as a cowbell transmitted into an earpiece at a high, potentially dangerous decibel level. This on/off audible sound accurately transmits a set tempo but the sound level must be quite high to distinguish over the sound level of the band.
There are two common problems with the traditional “click track”: Firstly, many musicians find themselves needing to turn the volume up very loud in order to hear the click consistently, which opens up the possibility for hearing damage. Secondly, it can be disconcerting—particularly for drummers—that when playing in perfect synchronicity, the click tone can seem to disappear and be difficult to pinpoint.
There are a number of visual based metronomes which vary from a pulsing LED which is turned on and off in time with the tempo, to more sophisticated visual displays which attempt to impart significantly more information than merely the tempo. For example, a progressing graph is used to display an upbeat and a downbeat, and to also provide a visual representation of the time interval remaining before the next beat. These prior art visual display metronomes have not proven as effective in communicating the tempo information to the user without a relatively high level of concentration.
A predominantly visual metronome offers some key advantages. Firstly, the musician can concentrate on the music being produced without audible interference from the metronome. Secondly, there is no decrease in perception of the tempo when a musician is playing along in perfect synchronicity (unlike the audible click track which can “disappear” when the musician is playing in perfect time). Lastly, the musician has greater flexibility in that he or she can effectively receive tempo information only when desired. For example, the musician can look away from or willfully ignore the visual signal, effectively using it on as-needed basis. In contrast it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to willfully ignore an audio based metronome.
The present invention provides an improved visual metronome that transmits the tempo information in an accurate and effective manner.